Ok. Since my last attempt was dropped somewhere in the middle of that last thread (my fault), I will try this again, with it's own thread.

I see a lot of comments about VERGE's lack of leadership, and the desire to have some. I hereby place my gauntlet at your feet, and if this is truly something that people want, I am willing to take on that role.

Who am I? I was around VERGE waaaaay back in the day. In fact, if you look at VERGE docs from the original release of engine 1, you will see me listed as the keeper of the Repository. Some of you may remember that... the "repo" as everyone called it. I was "active" in the group for a couple of years, and left when I got too busy -- familiar tale, eh? Well, now I'm back, and I like what I see. I can almost smell the sweat on my keyboard from those late-night sessions in IRC.

What's my plan? Here's some highlights:

1. Create a SINGLE, solid, useable build.

This would entail gathering and creating (with the help of the few "main" coders left) all of the features currently implemented across the various releases, and doing a single build, with a single source tree. This release would probably be labeled v2.9

It would be managed by a group of coders, and the build wouldn't be released until all coders gave their nod.

My goal would be to make this happen quickly. Very quickly. Like within a couple weeks.

2. Build the RepoII.

Make a site that supports the development effort. It would be simple to use, probably have a CVS repository, and maybe even it's own IRC server. Don't know. Esper doesn't like me very much. :)

This site would grow to be the primary developer, worldbuilder, and release site. verge-rpg would probably remain as the community/news site. Maybe... maybe not. /shrug --we'd decide that when we get to it.

3. v2.91-v2.99 and a demo

The VERGE developers would be asked to make monthly releases that contained bug-fixes only. No new features... just fixes. These would be defined as v2.91-v2.99 (if they do that many releases).

This would also be a chance for some folks to come together and build an updated (and short!) demo on the v2.9 "final" engine. Nothing fancy, just a short run through it's major features.

4. Prepare for V3.0

All of this will be building up towards a new release, with new features, of VERGE 3.0. This would include all of the features that couldn't make it into 2.9 for whatever reason, and maybe some new ones (plugin support?).

This would then follow the same cycle as the previous build, with incremental bug fixes released as sub-versions (3.1, 3.2, etc..)

5. VO

I would like to get the complete source for VERGE Online, and as a first step (with much help from the developers) update it with the v2.9x engine. Maybe we could get this very promising project going...?

........

And that's to start with. These are listed by order of importance, not by timing. We would tackle the single build issue first, then the site. While doing the 2.9x fixes, we would be looking at the VO code, and trying to update it. On top of this, a few people could be working on the 2.9 demo.

Work on V3 would happen probably in a couple months, and hopefully we could get things rolling into a regular cycle of releases. Maybe monthly bug-fix releases, and quarterly major (new features) releases? Something like that.

So that's what I'm thinking.

How's that sound?

If you don't think this is a good idea, say so. It's not going to hurt my feelings.

But I believe in VERGE's future, and I think, if we can pull it together, we can make something great once again.

Email me with comments.

locke@devnull.sh

-b

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